Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/132

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FOLLY.
  "Now I lay me down to sleep,  I pray the Lord my soul to keep;  If I should die before I wake,  I pray the Lord my soul to take."
    The warrior on the battlefield,After the battle—pillowing his head,Perhaps, upon a fallen comrade dead—    Scorns not to yieldTo the sweet memories of his childhood's hour,When fame was bartered for a crimson flower.    The statesman grey,His massive brow all hung with laurel leaves,Forgets his honours while his memory weavesA picture of that home, 'mid woods and streams,Where hoary mountains caught the sun's first beams;A cabin rude—the wide fields glistening,The cattle yoked, and mutely listening;The farmer's toil, the farmer's face, and, bestOf earthly luxuries, the farmer's rest.But hark! a soft voice steals upon his heart:"Now say your prayer, my son, before we partAnd clasping his great hands—a child once more—Upon his breast, forgetting life's long war,    Thus hear him pray:  "Now I lay me down to sleep,  I pray the Lord my soul to keep;  If I should die before I wake,  I pray the Lord my soul to take."
Folly.
There is folly in all the world, Or go we east or west;A folly that vexes the old, And keeps the young from rest.
The miser has folly enough, For his soul is in sordid bags;And the spendthrift's folly, alas! Brings him to sin and rags.
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